


Storm Shelter

by Bibliotecaria_D



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 06:04:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Civilization is a mask some wear to cover the savage thing waiting underneath.  One good storm can tear that mask away, and all will see the ugly truth left in its wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NK (NKfloofiepoof)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NKfloofiepoof/gifts).



Civilization is a mask some wear to cover the savage thing waiting underneath. One good storm can tear that mask away, and all will see the ugly truth left in its wake. 

 

 **Title:** Storm Shelter  
**Warnings:** Torture, gore, death. The usual.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Continuity:** G1 AU  
**Characters:** Dinobots, Starscream, Cliffjumper, Hound  
**Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
**Motivation (Prompt):** Fic based off of a kinkmeme request (http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/3587.html?thread=3222787#t3222787). Hardcore, like whoa.

 **[* * * * *]**  
**Part One**  
**[* * * * *]**

The sky went on forever. Endless stars above, glittering near and far. Anyone who stared upward too long risked dizziness. Cybertron spun through space, and the stars rotated. Every mech who looked up felt like the center of the universe as the stars spun around him, continually circling.

The atmosphere of Cybertron had thinned during the war, losing air to the void when gravity was weakest. Rotation of the planet changed unpredictably, leading to gravity fluxes that had collapsed substructures in the lower depths. The pockets of crushed rubble shifted depending on surface conditions. A heavy rain rattled the upper levels one hour, and two days later the support struts finally gave way in a section two sublevels down. Walking over perfectly harmless looking areas had the feel of navigating a minefield because rusted bolts could snap at any moment. Anyone on top would plummet downward. It was impossible to predict where the collapse would stop once it started.

It was never silent. Groans of strained metal came from deep under the ground, sound carried by the thicker air down below. Thin as the air on the surface was, it still whistled through abandoned cities and roads. Wind cut through gaps in armor, and the cold rush bit hard. Knives of chill air sliced in passing, and the clear, piercing shrieks of a ruined world wavered across the plains and through the dead city buildings. 

Sometimes the wind blew hot. Molten hot, fiery hot, spattering anyone upwind with sparking waves of heat. Tracked to the source, and suddenly Cybertron wasn’t a dead vista of dull orange rust and silvery stars reflected off corroded metal. True daylight on Cybertron was old history, but twilight stretched on as long as the sky, as endless as the stars. The nearest beads of distant starfire granted slivers of white and blue light to explore by, but it was the smelters that created sunrise and sunset. Approaching a pit meant the horizon licked tongues of flame up like a burgeoning sun on the planet’s surface. 

The colossal pits had once been disposal dumps and recycling plants before Shockwave had repurposed them for torture and prisons. Now they were abandoned. They smoldered, vast pools of cooled grey metal over deep, hot cores welling slowly up from beneath the surface. Here and there, the grey glowed as heat seeped through, red-hot metal boiling in glurping bubbles that flashed brilliantly when they popped. 

The smelters burnt through the last of their fuel slowly, cooling down as the fires petered out, but not all of them. Some of them were fueled by collected pools of natural resources Cybertron’s warring population had lost track of. When most of the world’s inhabitants had died, those who were left couldn’t remember what had been built versus what had originally been there. The changing substructure inside Cybertron made that even more difficult, crushing and squeezing off one pit’s source only to ignite a new smelter somewhere far away where some energon eventually seeped up and started on fire. Nature had reclaimed what Cybertronians had warped before and during the war, and now only the planet knew where its hazards lay.

Air swirled in fast changes over the pits, cold to hot, and winds gusted out from them. Clouds evaporated to nothing over the empty plains and ruins, or knitted into being over the steam of a smelter. Huge thunderheads coalesced when the steam-wisps collided, grumbling into looming banks that collected ominously. The bitterest, coldest blusters of wind pushed before them when they were ready to sweep in. Most of the time, the only warning anyone had was the stars vanishing, one by one, until the pattering hiss of acid rain got close enough to hear.

There were no more satellites in orbit to map out the smelting pits. Safe routes and fuel springs had been mapped out before the war, back when the huge nature preserves were leisure drives or destination spots. These days, the changing internal structure of Cybertron had brought acid pools into the middle of abandoned cities, fuel springs popping up beside old roads, and mineral deposits under basement bomb shelters on the outskirts of destroyed faction bases. Nature had aggressively reclaimed civilization, and the maps from before the war were no longer even remotely accurate. Cybertron had changed too much to trust anything but what was explored and reported back the hard way: from scouting missions, one foot before the other, one optic always looking upward for rain and the other watching the footing below. 

Plus someone to keep look-out at all times, sharp optics watching their surroundings. The environment wasn’t the only dangerous thing out here. The few restored cities had border walls and perimeter patrols for good reason. Those who ventured past the walls or traveled in unwary groups, well…it was difficult keeping track of those neutral civilians who arrived in the city spaceports, much less those who turned up at the border gates. Who knew how many mechs from any faction failed to make it to safety. 

Inside the walls, the Autobots protected those who had outlasted the war. Outside the wall in the wasteland wilds, it was a different story. Herds existed where the strongest protected the others, but only the hardiest, most dangerous beings survived. Technimal or mech, the weak on Cybertron found shelter or died. 

The wildlife wasn’t the most dangerous thing out past the border walls, however. Fierce ferals or formerly domesticated, technimals had never been the most dangerous thing the planet produced. Creatures didn’t go to war, after all. Mechs had nearly destroyed the planet fighting over it.

Frag, they’d imported even more fearsome beasts when Cybertron’s native altmodes and lifeforms failed to destroy it quickly enough.

“Are you sure they’re out here?” Cliffjumper checked his proximity scanners again, but the rough ground blocked most of his equipment. “They don’t exactly have a reputation of keepin’ to schedule.”

“Like we do? ‘Jumper, the only reason we made it out here on time is because we had to gun it past Praxus.” Shaking his head, Hound picked a path up to the top of the nearest outcrop. It looked like depth-charges had blown this plain apart early on in the war; the upthrust peaks around blown-open craters were worn by age and gravity. The sharpest edges had been bent into slumping shapes, but there were plenty of snags left to catch the unwary. Rust infections from scraping against hidden sharp spots could be a real problem. The Autobot avoided them with the ease of practice and stood tall, looking back the way they’d come. “Hope we lost them. They can be pretty persistent when they think there’s an injured mech in the party.”

Unspoken was the fact that two Autobots, armed or not, couldn’t take on a full flock of serrated cranes. They weren’t natural predators of larger species, although serrated cranes had been documented taking down bulkier avecals like dynametal ducks before the war. The problem was that the beautiful, ethereally delicate cranes needed fuel as much as any other technimal, and they’d learned that injured mechs bled more energon than small creatures. Taking a lone mech down could be easier than finding a hidden mineral oil pond to fish from, too.

Hound had seen technimals of every species turn scavenger after battles. Autobots hadn’t always shot at winged shapes overhead because they looked like Decepticons. Little beaks on nonsentient avecals could peck the optics from defenseless mechs as easily as Laserbeak and Buzzsaw had.

They’d been lucky the wind had been against the cranes they’d encountered near Praxus. The two Autobots had punched it and gotten the frag out of there, but that didn’t guarantee the flock hadn’t followed.

“Yeah, well,” Cliffjumper muttered as he checked the charge on his gun, “if the Dinobots would get their tails over here, we could clear out before the wind brings anything else our way. Picking up anything?”

Hound checked his scanners but didn’t see anything. “Not a ping, but that doesn’t mean nothing’s out there. I’m not even getting heat signatures from the smelter pit.” He jerked his thumb back toward the boiling metal hotspot they’d skirted to reach the rendezvous point. “Don’t know what this region was before the top strata got stripped up, but the lower strata are dense enough to block scanners. We could walk right over an ore deposit and not sense it.” Disaster areas in previous wild zones made for double the strange discoveries when the surface peeled away. They’d only known to expect that smelter pit over there because the Dinobots were doing their job.

Grudgingly, but thoroughly. No other group of Autobots could safely venture outside the border walls for months at a time and return with nothing more than dents, bad manners, and downloads jam-packed with insanely valuable information. Maps of the ruined cities, locations for natural upwellings of fuel filtering up from Cybertron’s recovering core, routes to pick through untriggered minefields. All things the Autobots desperately needed to survive on a world devastated by war.

Sometime between the start and end of the war, the planet had become every mech’s enemy. Shockwave hadn’t withdrawn to his Tower just because of the fuel crisis. Entire Decepticon bases had emptied out as the units inside fled looking for reinforcements, or crumpled into the depths under their own weight as the surface structure under them gave way. The Autobots had survived better, already adapted to guerilla warfare, but even they had stuck close to the Decepticon outposts to mooch off the relative safety of frequent patrols. Now that the war was over, it fell to the Autobots to supply those patrols and guide everyone else around the wilds of the planet. It wasn’t easy. The planet seemed to hate them all.

The Dinobots, conversely, fit in like it had always been their home. Even the primitive human civilizations of Earth hadn’t suited them as much as this untamed Cybertron did. 

Yet there were some things even the most savage mech needed from his tamer brethren. Hence the reason Hound and Cliffjumper risked their bumpers dodging acid rain and serrated cranes to get out to this bleak spot in the middle of nowhere.

One optic on their surroundings, the pair unloaded Hound’s trailer and Cliffjumper’s trunk. Both held more than it seemed they should, but that’s what happened when Wheeljack had access to the supply stash. Neither he nor Ratchet would give their creations a speck less than they believed the Dinobots were due, and Wheeljack had an almost demonic ability to fit little extras into the nooks and crannies.

Cliffjumper cast a look over the unexpectedly substantial pile. “We better not have been followed. There’s no way we’d be able to haul this away again.” Had he really had all that inside his trunk? Wow. He shook his head and gave the sky a worried look. “It look like rain to you?”

Hound glanced up from where he’d been checking off the inventory list. “Yeah. The tarps?”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Long practice had the smaller Autobot already reaching out, hand open for the end of the tarpaulin Hound pulled out of his emergency pack. A quick toss, and they draped the tarp over the pile of supplies together. “Got a weight?”

“We can grab something out of there.” His hand pointed toward a collapsed cliff, but Hound’s optics squinted as he evaluated the storm front. The starry sky went on forever, except for the stars gradually being blotted out by murky darkness. If he wasn’t mistaken, the silver glitter of starlight reflecting off thunderheads extended quite a ways. “Make it heavy. I think we’re in for a big blow.” He threw a scan out, too, turning a complete circle to try and catch a ping off anything living. “We’d better hunker down for the worst. Who knows how long we’ll be out here waiting if the Dinobots had to take cover, too.” 

“Hmph. They’ll probably come stomping in anyway.” Cliffjumper’s tone implied doubts about the Dinobots’ intelligence, but Hound didn’t take the bait. Mocking the Dinobots was almost habitual for some of the Autobots. It wasn’t insulting, whatever it sounded like to those who didn’t know better. The Dinobots had mocked Cliffjumper’s size, too, but he’d had their backs during fights enough that he knew they knew he was a spitfire fighter. He knew they’d get out of the rain.

It took some quick work, but they had the tarp weighted down before the first damp wind buffeted them. Cliffjumper and Hound hurried to dig out the entrance to the hollow they’d spotted. It didn’t have enough overhang to shield them both, but stringing their emergency shelter’s outer cover from the top extended it comfortably out into a large tent-like structure. They turned the entrance a bit to allow them to keep an optic on the supplies. 

Drops began to hiss as the first clouds reached them. One here, two there, and gradually, the plinking sizzle of acid rain picked up. The two Autobots worked faster, flinching occasionally as a drop splashed somewhere sensitive. Staying out in more than a light shower hurt.

The first growl of thunder came from the distance, and Hound tilted his head, judging that distance by the sound. He grimaced. “Twist the stakes in deep. If the worst of the storm’s that far away, we’re going to be here a while. We’d better hope the pH in this storm’s pretty high, or we’ll be throwing supplies in with us in the next hour.” The tarp would protect the pile as long as the slick coating kept the rain sliding off. If it rained too long, however, that coating would degrade too much. 

“At least there are no Rainmakers up there.” The joke didn’t get a smile, but it’d been black humor. Neither of them could count the number of Autobot units that hadn’t made it because the Rainmakers seeded and herded storms overhead until all shelter gave out under the acid rain.

Pitter-pattering turned into a steadily increasing deluge, but the two mechs ran under their shelter just in time. 

“And now we wait.” Hound turned his hands up and sighed. “Cards?”

“Why not.”

They played Sixshot Takedown while the rain continued. After the first few hands, Cliffjumper took out one of his guns and disassembled it for cleaning. He pounded a dent beside the entrance of the shelter so a puddle would form and gingerly dipped the parts into it to take off gunk build-up. Lulled half into recharge by the downpour, Hound stared off into the distance as the red minibot worked. This storm didn’t have a low pH, luckily, but it had picked up plenty of moisture. The combination of gasses up in the clouds produced a unique silvery-blue tint to the falling rain. It was pretty, if dangerous. 

Everything out there had a murky veil splashed down over it. The jagged ground looked smooth. The upthrust peaks looked like majestic cliffs. Hound could almost forget Cybertron was wild and ruined, looking out into the world under falling rain. 

The ground hissed, metal slowly corroding under the steady rainfall. Thunder boomed louder in a long, rolling rumble that echoed through the hollows and rattled thin layers over open spaces far below. Again, and again, with the crackling undertone of lightning. The clouds flashed overhead, blue static light crawling through them, and booming thunder thumped the ground in a concussive burst. Something began to burn over behind the nearest ridge, bright and red-hot.

Cliffjumper glanced up when he spotted it. “That’s not a chemical fire.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Hound murmured in response, most of his attention on the concealed flames as he drew a pistol. It was a precautionary measure but not an idle one. The wilds of Cybertron had become very wild indeed. “Do you hear that?”

“I hear a lot. Not sure what I’m hearing, but I hear it.” 

The thunder hadn’t abated. In fact, it’d growled on into an unsteady roar normal Cybertronians might not have recognized. Hound and Cliffjumper had been on the _Ark_ mission, however, and that sound brought memories of assault vehicles to mind. It sounded disturbingly similar to heavy-duty tires on the move. Metal crunched and gave under tires bearing heavy weight, forward motion provided by brute propulsion. Everyone in the war had trained their audios to pick up the strained whine of anti-gravity platforms hovering over uneven ground. Grounders tended to have anti-grav even now, when the only smooth roads were in the ruins of the cities. Larger grounders went for treads, because only lighter mechs could successfully hover anywhere anymore. The mechs who’d gone to Earth had kept their tires, and others were starting to pick up the crude technology. It served them well on Cybertron these days.

“Not tanks,” Hound said, still in that low voice as his optics unfocused to prioritize sound over sight. “Heavy, but not constant like treads. Too uneven for tires. Not marching, either.” The crunching approach had the resounding tromp of large frametypes, but troops on the move had rhythm. This sound was erratic as the lightning.

A gout of flame belched over the ridge, and the rain fell harder as an almighty _crash_ swayed the whole shelter. Lightning blinded Hound, but Cliffjumper counted to three and brought his optics back online.

Just in time to witness a silvery form breech the top of the ridge and bellow a long, primal scream that tore the air. Cliffjumper fell into a defensive crouch on circuit-level reflex. That sound hit the gut like a blow directly to survival instincts. “Holy glitching -- !” 

Thought caught up with reflex a second later as the fire backlit an entirely too-recognizable shape. Even under the downpour, a T-Rex stood out. “What the fragging Unmaker are they doing out in this weather?!” So much for intelligence!

“Grimlock!” Hound lowered his pistol and raised his other hand to shield his optics as another burst of lightning turned the world a brilliant blue-white. The tall Dinobot on the ridge bent forward, mouth opening let out another enraged bellow. He seemed to be menacing something behind him. “Grimlock! Ah, rust, he can’t hear us over the rain. We need to get him in here before he becomes a lightning rod!”

Acid sluiced in a wide arc visible even from the shelter as Grimlock whipped his tail around and screamed again, twisting through transformation right as a second savage roar answered his challenge. The rattling ground bucked underfoot, a sudden stampede the Autobots could feel jarring their heel struts, and the red fire behind the ridge grew. The light turned orange, yellow, brighter and brighter, until it _broke_ in a stabbing flare over the crest. Every puddle turned into shimmering pools of reflected light. The whole area gleamed, abruptly burning.

Slag hit the top already spitting fire, horns and mouth streaming licks of flame as he charged. It highlighted him against the rain and the darkness.

It smacked back into his face as the flat of Grimlock’s sword slammed into the center like a baseball player going for a homerun. Slag’s furious scream cut off, protective optic shutters closing as fire backwashed so hard it fanned out from his neck frill. Grimlock spun out of the way of his blind charge and swung again, sword hitting the next gout of flame as it left Slag’s mouth. Fire spilled down the ridge in a sudden burning fall that immediately drowned in the rain. The sword flat slapped Slag across the beak, throwing him aside, and Grimlock dodged back from what fire made it toward him. 

The triceratops yelled above the roar of their powerplants, a sound deeper and closer than the thunder the Autobots had originally mistaken it for. “You Grimlock dancer or fighter?! You pretty ballerina, not Dinobot!”

Grimlock didn’t answer, too busy charging forward to slash his sword at his teammate’s back. Slag’s tail whipped toward the taller Dinobot, who chose to fling his sword aside to grapple with it. The loud, tortured _skreeeeel_ of metal-on-metal screeched above the hissing rain as Grimlock got a grip and started hauling on it. Slag bellowed curses, calling Grimlock all manner of rude names. Clawed feet dug into the ground, splashing acid puddles, and Grimlock struggled to keep his grip. The taller fighter leaned back, arms wrapped around Slag’s tail and heels scraping the ground.

Slag pulled, four legs and the power of his beastmode up against Grimlock’s powerful but less balanced rootmode. His tail slipped free, nearly tossing Grimlock aside in a flick of the end, and the long, curved horns on his head swung around to either impale or do some tossing of their own. “Dance with me Slag, foil-licker!”

Grimlock lunged out of the way and lost his footing, but his hands caught one oncoming horn and took Slag with him as he tumbled down the ridge. Gravity turned his mass into a weapon. Four legs weren’t enough to keep Slag upright against that force. Thunder boomed, lightning crashed, and under the white flare of electricity, they rolled in a kicking, flailing, angrily shouting ball right into the slurry of melted metal and acid at the base of the ridge. Grimlock went down in a massive splash under Slag, but the triceratops was in no position to take advantage of that. He was doing no better. Both brow horns had snagged in the gash they’d torn in the ground, and he flailed all four feet in the air, wrenching against them. 

Rain and thunder couldn’t blot out the shouting. “Me Slag peel you Grimlock open! You Grimlock dead engine block when me Slag finish with you!”

Grimlock recovered first. Slicked by melted metal, he shoved free and scrambled away before Slag could roll to pin him again. His visor blazed a triumphant blue when a quick glance around gave him the weapon he needed. Seizing his sword, he bulldozed his shoulder into the side of the other Dinobot just as the triceratops righted himself. Slag shrieked, utterly infuriated as he hit the ground once more in a strut-jarring thud. He tossed his head around, trying to snap his beak shut on one of Grimlock’s legs as the mech dove over him and hit the ground running on the other side. 

Slag’s head turned, forequarters twisting on the ground as he surged up onto his feet. His mouth opened, throat an unholy pit of flame.

Fire spewed toward Grimlock -- and the pile of supplies at his feet.

“Stop! Stop, you morons!” Cliffjumper jerked forward, restrained by Hound. “You’ll set off the -- “

The minibot couldn’t have stopped the fight even if he’d tried. Even before he finished yelling a warning, one huge foot kicked Slag right between the horns. The triceratops’ front knee almost gave out under the heavy kick, and it threw his aim completely off. Combat instinct had the Dinobot tossing his head up to bring the stream of fire back on target, aiming to burn, aiming to _melt_ , but Grimlock seized him by the horns. The toss only spring-boarded him up and over his horns in a fast flip, landing Grimlock onto his back. 

Knees slammed down behind the protected shoulders of Slag’s beast form hard enough to dent, and Slag stumbled as the sockets crimped. It didn’t immobilize him, but the joints locked up. “Fragger! Face me Slag!” He threw his head back again, trying to crush Grimlock with his neck frill.

That was a mistake. Slag’s enraged shriek became a muffled roar as Grimlock set his feet against Slag’s back legs and lunged _over_ the frill. “Me Grimlock not fragger. Me Grimlock frag you **up!** ” Straddling the other Dinobot, arms wrapped around the prominent, dangerous horns, Grimlock jammed the flat of his sword across Slag’s open mouth. 

The emerging belch backfired, flames slamming into the sword and ricocheting back down Slag’s throat past the ignition point. The fuel tank cut-off closed automatically, and Slag coughed smoke violently. Even through the falling rain, his vents could be heard wheezing.

“And that, as they say, is that.” Hound let go of Cliffjumper’s arm and put his own pistol away. The minibot grumbled but followed suit.

Slag thrashed around, but Grimlock had him under control. The triceratops didn’t make a good wild bronco with his front two shoulders partially caved in and a sword in his mouth as a bridle, but he did give it his all for a few minutes. Grimlock clung to him, shifting his weight enough to throw off Slag’s balance and counter any attempt to roll and crush him. Tail thrashing, head tossing, Slag stomped around in the puddles and gronked angrily around the sword while his commander didn’t given an inch.

The acid rain was a new addition, but that was a familiar sight to the _Ark_ crew. Bit more violent than the tussles they used to see, but Slag had always been the rebellious one. Grimlock had beaten orders into all the Dinobots at one point or another despite Optimus Prime’ overt disapproval of the practice, but Slag was special. He was the one whom even the Prime sighed and seemed to contemplate throwing a punch at. 

Hound waved when it looked like the triceratops had grudgingly given up. “Hey! You guys ready to get out of the rain yet?”

Grimlock didn’t take his visor off his downed opponent. Slag had come to stand-still, air heaving in rasping vents, but that didn’t mean that the stubborn glitch wouldn’t try to buck him off the second he turned his attention away. “Me Grimlock fine.” That was a lie. Wheeljack and Ratchet had used the toughest alloys available, but even his armor had begun to show pitting under the acid deluge by now.

Slag’s metal hide twitched. “Me Slag no like Cybertron’s rain.”

“Slag, nobody likes Cybertron’s rain,” Cliffjumper snorted. “That’s a fact of life.”

As one, the two Dinobots turned to stare at Hound. The Autobot put his hands up and laughed. “Nah, not even me. I love nature, but this isn’t natural. This is what the war did. Sla -- uh, stuff got thrown into the atmosphere that wasn’t supposed to, and between that and the storm-seeders, the storms started getting real bad a couple million years back. Didn’t used to be so bad though,” he continued, giving Slag a graceful out. “Back before the pollution from bombing and the war industry, the pH levels only got into the danger zones around the southern cities. Iacon and Praxus got just low enough to scour the roads clean and keep the building facings smooth. Out in the nature preserves, only the occasional squall during the wet seasons went down to where the wildlife took damage. That’s how new growth happened, so unless it got too bad, nobody tried to divert the rain. A good low pH rain melted down the old junk and put down a layer of fertilizer minerals after the acid fizzled out. Can’t tell you how many times we’d find a fuel reserve unrecognizable from the last time we surveyed the pools, just because a hard storm melted the surfaces around them.”

Listening to Hound chatter on about the old days meant that Grimlock could casually loosen his grip, Slag could just as casually ease out from under him, and nobody would mention how bad Slag had just lost, nope. Everyone was listening to Hound talk, not watching Slag transform and stump after Grimlock toward the shelter. The sullen Dinobot looked even sulkier than usual, but Cliffjumper and Hound weren’t commenting on that. They’d let the mech nurse his bruised pride. Smoothing over a patched ego was a skill every Autobot knew.

“Acid rain getting worse,” Grimlock noted as he eased gingerly under the shelter. “Metal decay accelerating. Dissolved mineral and fuel deposits recycling back into smelter pits, burning up into atmosphere, creating more storms.” He accepted a flask from Hound with a curt nod of thanks. Checking the level of base liquid inside, he handed it to Slag to use first. It was small gestures like that that reminded the two Autobots why Grimlock led his unit, and why he bore the Autobot brand. “War ending hasn’t ended cycle. Him Prime must find solution, or him Prime only going to whine when mega-storms hit cities.”

Slag poured the base fluid into his hands and rubbed them together to spread it evenly before applying it to his beastmode’s outer hide. It should have been an awkward process with the way his altmode kibble rearranged around him after transformation, but the way he systematically went after every part spoke of long experience. The Dinobots had been exposed to a lot of weather since coming to Cybertron.

“If it’s in your reports, then I’m sure it’ll be addressed,” Hound said tactfully. “Where are the others, by the way?”

“Should we expect them to show up and try to all fit in here?” That was asked rather dryly, as Cliffjumper had already retreated into the very back of the rain shelter to make way for the two much larger mechs. No way were the other Dinobots fitting in here with them. Sludge’s beastmode was easily the size of the whole shelter. The others could take shelter under _him_.

Grimlock huffed in amusement. “No. Them other Dinobots stay in base.” He jerked his chin toward the rain as if that would explain what he meant by that. Apparently there was a base somewhere out there? Hound and Cliffjumper gave him quizzical looks he ignored. “Him Swoop come find us when storm passes. No need for all Dinobots to relocate during bad weather. Me Grimlock and him Slag take what supplies him Swoop can’t airlift back.”

“Back where?” 

The Dinobot leader shrugged noncommittally. “Back to base.”

Cliffjumper’s frown deepened. “Yeah, I got that. **What** base? Why the frag we gotta haul this junk out to the middle of nowhere if you guys got a base? Just give us the coordinates, and we can just show up on your doorstep! You know what we had to go through to get here today? We had to run from a flock of blasted **birds** , I’ll have you know -- ”

“Whoa, hey!” Hound laid a hand on his friend’s hood to calm him down. Always quick to jump to conclusions, the red minibot had leapt from ‘base’ to ‘personal insult’ in record time. “What ‘Jumper means is that nobody told us the Dinobots had a base. It’d be easier to ship supplies out if we’d known.”

Slag handed his commander the flask and gave his own shrug. “Base is just old buildings. We Dinobots would move on, but good location and roofs in decent repair.” His optics slid away from Grimlock’s hard stare. Touchy subject, it seemed. After a moment, he glanced in Grimlock’s general direction and said in half-sparked complaint, “Me Slag sick of fixing leaks.”

Cliffjumper and Hound both frowned, although Hound’s was more thoughtful than irate. “Why would location matter?” the scout asked right as Cliffjumper scoffed, “The Dinos settling down? Fixing roofs is kinda domestic.” 

Both Dinobots blinked, puzzled. Slag scowled, confusion disappearing into an extra helping of angry, and he turned away from the Autobots to glare out into the rain. Grimlock paused in pouring base liquid onto the worst of the acid pitting on his shoulders. “Me Grimlock warned you: acid rain getting worse.” His tone asked why he bothered saying anything to outsiders. Nobody ever _listened_ to the Dinobots. It was as frustrating as pushing a boulder up a never-ending hill.

The two mechs had to rewind the conversation to recall what he’d said. “…oh. I didn’t know you meant, like,” Hound made a vague gesture, “ **that** bad.” That would explain why Wheeljack had packed a dozen more emergency shelter packs in the supplies. If the rain was getting so bad out here that the Dinobots weren’t venturing away from permanent shelter, then that was pretty bad, indeed. Hound would make sure to add his voice to Grimlock’s reports, in that case. 

Because he had the feeling that the details would get skimmed over and dismissed, otherwise. It wasn’t nice and it definitely wasn’t smart on the Autobots’ end, but people did tend to dismiss what the Dinobots said. The cities welcomed the raw data from exploring new territory, but anything else from the ‘dumb drones’ didn’t seem to matter. Hound had witnessed it happen. He’d even done it himself, despite knowing better. Rust and rot, he’d just done it!

He’d make sure to push those reports when they got back. 

Grimlock grunted, done wasting his time on conversation where half the speakers weren’t listened to. The dismissal got a sneer from Cliffjumper, but Hound and him knew the Dinobots. Once someone snubbed a Dinobot, intentionally or not, that was the end of talking. The Dinobots were an exclusive group. They shut out anyone who wore on their patience or somehow insulted them.

Embarrassed by his own behavior, Hound subtly prodded his partner into handing over the stack of datapads Grimlock asked for in every delivery. “We brought the news. Lot of it’s political stuff, but I’m sure you knew that. Two of the cities are negotiating resources and labor planning for a highway between ‘em. Might have to be walled, if the patrols don’t start picking off the scavengers.”

The chatter got another grunt, but Grimlock did accept the stack and start paging through the files. Slag had plopped down at the entrance to the shelter, half standing watch and half hypnotized by the falling rain. Grimlock’s joints creaked slightly as he sat opposite his subordinate, already reading through the first datapad. 

“Don’t know why you’ve got such an interest in that sla -- stuff.” Slag didn’t so much as twitch, but Cliffjumper still shot him a half-aft apologetic grimace for the slip-up. “Politics aren’t your thing. Dinobots are more smash-n-burn, right?” Nothing soothed an annoyed Dinobot quite like flattery, and the red minibot didn’t want to sit in strained silence through the storm. “We could use a few of you around when the neutrals start blabbing about who has a right to what. Between them and the Deceptiscum sympathizers, Prime’s too busy mopping up everybody’s hurt feelings to get anything real accomplished. Boohoo, the ‘Cons got what was coming to them. Nope, we ain’t gonna let them go. Yeah, they’re fragging miserable, and good, I say.” He blew air out and shook his head. “And then there’s the other side crying -- wah wah wah, not everybody can have a buncha prisoners for their personal projects. Let the bawling begin.” He threw up his arms. “Why would you **want** to read about that, Grimlock? You’re no politician. Just leave that scrap to the mechs who can’t avoid it.”

Grimlock didn’t look up. “You Cliffjumper weatherman?”

He had to translate that from human terms. “What, a meteorologist?”

The bulkier mech wasn’t going to dignify that with a reply. Listen to what he’d just _said,_ cogsucker. Another datapad was laid aside, read through. If Hound hadn’t been paying attention by now, he wouldn’t have noticed how _fast_ Grimlock was reading and assimilating the news files. That was no guarantee of actual understanding, but Grimlock had always struck him as smarter than he appeared. The scout sat down close to the Dinobot leader and observed. He was good at that. Maybe he should have spent more time observing the Dinobots, if this was what he’d missed seeing.

After a minute of waiting for an answer that wasn’t coming, Cliffjumper shook his head. “Of course not. Nobody is, these days. Maybe Perceptor, but he’s into everything. Why?”

“You Cliffjumper watch sky.” It wasn’t a question. Everybody watched the sky when they were outside the city walls. “You Cliffjumper not weatherman, but you Cliffjumper still watch sky. Why?”

If he could have, he’d have rolled his optics. “Because I don’t need to be a meteorologist to see danger coming.”

Hound nodded, just slightly. Of course. Wings, clouds, politics. Everything dangerous could be seen coming on the horizon, and careful watchers were forewarned. They watched in order to know when to search for shelter, which way to run -- or when to stand and fight.

That focused blue visor spared him a glance, and Grimlock gave him a bare nod in return. In the back of the shelter, Cliffjumper’s exasperated expression went blank as it hit him what Grimlock had been saying all along. He got it. 

“Acid rain is getting worse,” the Dinobot repeated, one of the few times he ever did. “Storms more frequent. Rainfall heavier, and acid doing more damage. Him Prime need to find solution soon.” 

The rain hissed outside. Grimlock wasn’t talking about it, as much as he really was, and the two Autobots were only now realizing that.

“You carbots ever see him Starscream in cities?” Slag said, interrupting the silent moment of thought. He didn’t look away from the rain, but he wouldn’t if he were standing watch. “Us Dinobots see him Starscream at the base.”

That effectively broke the solemn mood. Cliffjumper’s disturbing thoughts went out the airlock as he laughed harshly. “Screamer? Screamer’s **dead** , Slag. Weren’t you -- wait, you had to be there. Everybody was at the executions.” He drew his sidearm and checked it restlessly, wound up from the right-angle shift to his mindset. He didn’t want to think about this stuff. “What scrap are you talking, seeing Screamer?”

Lightning flashed briefly off Slag’s face when he looked back into the shelter. “Me Slag see Starscream die, but me Slag still see Starscream at base.” 

Grimlock set down a datapad and turned on the next one. “What he Slag said. Us Dinobots see him Starscream, sometimes. You Cliffjumper know what happened to bodies of them Decepticons him Prime kill? You Cliffjumper sure he Starscream dead? Him Prime shoot him Starscream, but me Grimlock didn’t see him Starscream go grey. Kills happened too fast.”

“Executions,” Hound murmured, wincing. Killing was killing, but everyone was careful to use the more political euphemism. Everyone but Grimlock, who’d made his impatience with politics clear early on. “Prime…executed them.” Cliffjumper shot him a conflicted look, but he couldn’t meet his friend’s optics. He’d never agreed with the executions, while Cliffjumper endorsed them wholesale. It was something they’d agreed to disagree on because arguing about it had threatened to tear their friendship apart.

Optimus Prime had refused to let anyone else be the executioner when the Autobot trial council decided the Decepticon officers were too dangerous to keep alive. He’d accepted being outvoted, but he’d insisted on being the Autobots’ hand on the gun, if that was how the war ended. The Autobots could murder the Decepticon officers, but their Prime refused to do it behind the scenes in sterile cells, using medical equipment in the name of mercy nobody believed in. Some of the Decepticons -- by their request only -- had been drugged insensible, but they’d been executed in front of everyone, Autobot and captive Decepticons and neutrals alike. A crowd of witnesses had gathered to watch to the brutality of majority rule, and that was how the war ended: in more death, like a fatal punctuation mark. 

Some mechs had applauded, but the crowd had fallen mostly silent by the third shot. Optimus Prime the executioner could scare anyone, and he’d glared viciously at anyone who dared cheer. A full day of executions had ended the war, and he would never let them forget it. Some of the Autobots felt he’d never forgive them for it, either.

The Dinobots had been there. They’d probably been the only ones who seemed to take any satisfaction in the deaths by the close of the day. No approval, no disapproval; just recognition of a necessary job seen through to the end. So while Cliffjumper and Hound looked away from each other, opinions divided on the subject, the two Dinobots waited for one of them to answer what they saw as simple questions.

“I didn’t see his corpse, but I think they took the bodies to the nearest smelter,” Cliffjumper said roughly. “No funerals or anything. Just dropped them in by the truckload.” The Decepticon officers had died via a shot through the spark, and the bodies had been put into sealed trailers afterward for transport. They’d been carried in more respectfully toward the end, but the first couple of trailers had been a chaos of limp bodies thrown in, limbs every which way. He remembered that clearly. He’d been there to stand guard over the prisoners, but he’d been close enough to watch the bodies get pushed off the execution platform. Ratchet had brought every scientist and medic available to check for final spark-pulse and stamp the official time of death on every Decepticon file closed that day. Sheer number of executions had required that many people to handle the last bit of filework. Guards had been on one end of the platform, escorting the condemned Decepticons up to the Prime; medics had been on the other side to take them away and make sure they were really dead.

It’d been a mess. A gory, efficient, terrible, and perfectly legal slaughter.

Waiting out the storm quietly held great appeal to Cliffjumper, suddenly. “Starscream’s dead and recycled,” he said shortly. “Stop spouting nonsense about seeing him. We’re not going to fall for whatever you’re trying. We’re not stupid, and you’ve got functioning memory databanks. Use ‘em.” He _tsk_ ed snidely. “Maybe you ought to check your optics before you run your vocalizers.”

“It is kind of tasteless to talk about it, nowadays,” Hound said, a little quieter but no less firmly. “Starscream’s dead. Don’t play games on us like that, okay?”

Slag didn’t look away from the rain, but his shoulders tensed angrily. Since anger was normal for him, the two Autobots didn’t say anything about it. Grimlock narrowed his visor and fell back into the aloof silence he kept around those who didn’t listen. It was as much an offensive weapon as a defensive tactic. If they were going to ignore what he said, then he’d ignore them right back.

The Autobots never listened. They heard what they wanted to hear, not what the Dinobots actually said. They’d been misjudged since the day they came online. Grimlock still didn’t know what to do about that. He found it difficult to change stubborn fools’ minds, especially when he didn’t particularly care about their opinions to begin with.

“Me Slag not play games,” Slag gritted out, long after the rain stopped, the shelter had been taken down, and Cliffjumper and Hound had driven away, back toward civilization. “Me Slag see Starscream.”

“Him Starscream dead.” Grimlock gazed off after the two cars. “Us Dinobots know. Us Dinobots see.”

“Me Slag not smell or hear him Starscream. Only see.”

“Me Grimlock know.” He sympathized with Slag’s frustration. If only the Autobots had listened, they’d have heard what Grimlock and Slag had asked. They’d asked for proof of a dead body, but Cliffjumper’s non-answer had provided doubt, instead. 

Grimlock had seen a ghostly shape in the shadows of the base. He already doubted. 

He smelled a storm coming.

 

**[* * * * *]**

_[ **A/N:** For NK, who went for the plot that will kill people’s emotions. Blame NK. I’m just writing it.]_


	2. Pt. 2

**Title:** Storm Shelter  
**Warning:** Torture, gore, death. The usual.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Continuity:** G1 AU  
**Characters:** Dinobots, Starscream  
**Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors.  
**Motivation (Prompt):** Fic based off of a kinkmeme request (http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/3587.html?thread=3222787#t3222787). Hardcore, like whoa.

 **[* * * * *]**  
Part Two  
**[* * * * *]**

 

The sky went on forever, except where it ended.

Groundframes looked at the horizon. What they could see became their limitations. The sky, for them, hemmed in their world. The upturned bowl of starry night became a cage over them, and where sky touched ground delineated the world as they knew it. Groundframes were limited to what was under them, what was marked out around them, as much as they could see of their surroundings. What lurked underneath held the fear of mystery; what yawned above was inaccessible. The world as grounders knew it lay under the stars above them, and they couldn’t leave the surface their feet were bound to.

They even insisted on marking out boundaries inside their limitations. Cybertron had long been traced by long, winding roads that gave the illusion of freedom but, in reality, only mapped out where groundframes could and could not go. They accepted the chains of gravity without seeing it as one law of many, then made rules abound where it pressed them down. Their entire universe restricted them.

Flyers looked up. They looked up, and the universe spun around them, ever outward and upward until even the start of all things vanished, never to be reached no matter how fast or far one went. Wherever a flight frame stood became the axis of the galaxy, and no limits existed when staring up into the sky. Call them arrogant, maybe self-centered, but the ground under their feet wasn’t the world. It was a temporary resting place. Gravity was a challenge, not a chain. Nothing could be bound by it, and nothing pressed them down that couldn’t be fought. 

When flight frames saw the stars stretching endlessly on above them, they didn’t see a cage. They saw opportunity. The sky gave them something grounders just didn’t have: freedom in every direction. A world of potential that could never be fully explored, because it kept expanding the further one flew.

Grounders believed in a circular universe, a timeline that came back around to where the ending became a new start or returned to the old beginning once more. Run or drive as fast as they liked, but they could never escape. Everything in their limited world returned. History repeated. 

Flyers knew better. They never looked back, only forward, and the universe opened ever outward after that. 

The difficult part of an escape was the initial flight to break free. 

Flight…

Starscream looked up at the stars. Endless black space, empty as the void and expanding endlessly, but that wasn’t true. The clinical, scientific side of him recalled dry facts to dissemble the philosophical musings. Yes, the universe theoretically bloomed out, but with the theory of expansion came one of retraction. As the universe began, so science theorized it ended. Creation and destruction, although once again that science based itself on the cyclical theory that everything that began had to end. 

Regardless, the sky above him wasn’t an empty space he could freely fly through. Breaking Cybertron’s thin atmosphere could be done, but the airless void of space had far more in it than it looked like from here. The space between the stars held debris and radiation: ice, rock, drifts of gas, heat, light, and a throbbing pulse that someone had once told him translated to a strange music. The stars sang, high and keening, and a sound that wasn’t sound filled space even where it seemed empty.

He didn’t quite remember who had told him that. Someone knowledgeable about sound, able to pick up the passing signals. He didn’t know the name, but he had an image in the back of his mind of blue plating, a blank face mask, and a subtle wit that cut as often as it amused. The comment had been in passing, he remembered that. From what little he did recall, it’d probably been intended to insult him. The mech seemed the type to insult to every sound in space in order to evade being called out on a direct offense.

Comparing him to the snap of gasses igniting, the crackling song of a living star hardly seemed an insult to Starscream, although he distantly felt a twinge for the memory. The high-pitched sound, an insult meant to mock him, as if he should take offense at the dig at his voice, because he always sounded so -- so --

Fear dulled the edges of his vision like storm clouds blotting the stars from the sky, and darkness closed around him for a split second. A closed, deep blackness of a windowless room and locked doors clamped around him, and something harsher than mere pain raked through him.

“ **No!** ”

A high sound, a _shrill_ sound, a voice in a scream from a rasping vocalizer, a helpless shriek pulled by agony and splintered plating, a piercing creel as fingers shattered the vocalizer in his throat and left a pain-laced ruin that still, somehow, sent its pain in throbbing pulses out despite existing in a pitiless void.

“No.”

Starscream looked up at the sky and couldn’t see it past the cell he saw through cracked optic glass.

_No._

He made himself _see_ the sky until the darkness of a room became the night sky, until the sharp, blinking stabs of pinprick monitor lights became the flickers seen behind optics reset too quickly. He relaxed only when a last reset showed him pale, milky starlight. Stars sang. Machinery and equipment didn’t make music. Walls didn’t stretch out forever into infinite possibility. The stars flung their sound into the void above him, and he focused on them. They could be heard. Their song was strange to those bound by ground, perhaps, but a constant companion to someone who defied gravity. Those who knew to listen could hear them, find their sources. He’d long known that space had form, shape, and substance. A star couldn’t ignite without a source. It came from something and left a mark when it ended. The dissipation of its last flames left traces of its passing. 

A star could sing in life, cry out against death, but it would not remain unheard as long as the universe kept unfurling. Sound traveled. 

He wasn’t a star, however. Starscream didn’t always remember where he was or how he’d come to be there, but he was no star. He was a mech, and bound by that. The void above the planet didn’t support life naturally. Internal life support systems had to strain to compensate for the dead chill of space. Radiation penetrated whatever side faced a star, and the lack sucked the temperature drastically down on the other side. Hot and cold, cold and hot, changing turn by turn until a flyer landed. The ground limited mechs, outlined artificially boundaries, but there was security in a solid surface underfoot. It was neutral. The air above it could be hot or cold, extreme or mild, but the ground itself was a constant temperature by comparison.

The ground was finite. The stars moved, leaving flyers behind to falter under gravity. If the initial escape couldn’t be made, then crippled flight frames had to seek security. 

The trick was to find stability while falling, and hit the ground already running.

He sought cold. Always, always he aimed for the cold areas. Cold meant safety. Cold meant freedom. Cold meant he wasn’t caged.

Heat meant he hadn’t escaped. Hot air blew an updraft under his wings, helping him spiral up into the sky, but he couldn’t fly and he wasn’t in the air. What he felt didn’t activate his flight subroutines. Fear crawled down his back, because he couldn’t outrun the heat stalking him everywhere he hid.

He looked up at the stars and raised a hand, straining upward as if mere willpower could launch him into the sky. His spark yearned. Bitter cold skimmed around it in an icy shell that split but didn’t break. It anchored him down even as everything Starscream was tried to pull out and finally be free. Yet he couldn’t, not so long as whisps of warmth lingering in his extremities. The cold meant freedom, a numbness that made being bound here easier like losing himself in the frigid expanse of the never-ending sky, but no.

The Seeker sighed and let his hand fall. No, his spark still couldn’t leave. The swelling burn of heat on his spark created a ghostly form around him, like it or not. He had a body shaped of air, solid as steam where hot air met cold. The colder the place he sought -- and he did seek that numb, frozen cold -- the more transparent he became as the burn faded and the steam cooled. The higher the temperature chasing him, the stronger the swirls of steam that wasn’t really steam. It was life. It was pain. It was what he ran from.

When the heat torched his spark, color tinted his star-silver body blue and red, and then the cold thawed completely. 

Starscream didn’t want to remember. The heat trapped him in a body he didn’t want, and he didn’t want to remember how, who, what, or why. It held him here on Cybertron. He hid and evaded it, but not forever. The heat found him no matter how he dodged it. He didn’t know what it was, only that sometimes it struck him in volcanic bursts of hot sensation that left him gasping for cold air he didn’t even need. 

A tingling rush of prickling sensor nodes activating out of nowhere warned him, a splash of boiling liquid over a deactivated sensor network that didn’t hurt but warned that it soon would, and the Seeker whirled in terror. His arms rose instinctively against an enemy he couldn’t see or fight, and he cringed behind their inadequate shelter.

On the other side of his murky arms, a blue visor stared thoughtfully back at him. The sword that’d swished through his torso lowered, the tip resting in the rust, but too late.

The Seeker threw his head back, optics desperately seeking the sky, and the heat crashed down upon him. The stars disappeared immediately before pain wiped vision into blaring red and yellow gauge readouts that blinded and deafened him with errors thrust straight into his mind. Cold numbness evaporated into the crunch of canopy glass, the stinging tear of cockpit instrumentation missing inside him, the rattling click of fans. His defensive shield of ice caved in, bright color flooding his ghostly grey plating as sudden and merciless as an operating table’s light switching on overhead. 

Abrupt _agony_ came from everywhere at once, and he shrieked in shocked pain so unexpected his knees gave way. 

“No, **stop!** ”

He fell. He practically threw himself to the rust-pitted ground, to the smooth floor, and the feet before him weren’t the ones he pleaded in front of.

“Stop! Stop, I’ll do anything, I’ll do whatever you want, just **stop!** ”

Smooth floors until battered armor, walls and ceilings that confined him, and Starscream screamed against the burning wrench of reality. _Please._

And then he found himself, unable to say precisely how, staring up at the stars again, panting and dizzy but separate from the intense panic and pain he’d felt only a moment ago. Where was he? What had happened?

He climbed back to his feet and willed the cold to lock the answers away, because he didn’t want to know.

Silver starlight glimmered as wings flared wide, and Starscream flexed his hands in front of himself. His fingertips had turned blue. Not a good sign. The wind had shifted, pulling at his mist-filled form weakly but persistently. The air flowing over his knuckles felt warm, however, and he watched it gradually lap a blue, translucent tint up toward the back of his hands. The metal took on the color of life instead of the transparent grey of death, and the heat grew. 

Uneasy, he clenched his hands into fists and dropped them to his sides. When the color reached his wrists, the lightning strike of electric sensation would bolt up his arms again. The pangs would come more frequently, and stronger, until the torment of furnace-heat and color finally blotted him out. He’d wake up staring at the stars later, but vague memories told him he didn’t want to remember what happened after the fire grew too hot to bear. 

The faint glow he gave off didn’t provide much to see by, but he’d seen his reflection in tarnished metal. He was shaking hard enough to blur his outline right now, but he knew what he’d see if he looked at himself. His body should be dead. It should have died and been smelted. He just didn’t feel it until the color and heat solidified him and took him back, and it kept _not dying_.

He knew it wouldn’t help, but some long-ingrained survival instinct told him to seek shelter. Starscream turned and entered the nearest building. His spark drifted through the startled mechs who’d been watching him, and a gout of flame billowed through his body in reaction. He didn’t react. Honestly, he didn’t even notice. It wasn’t physical heat he shied from, and the voices that argued in his wake weren’t the sounds he listened for. 

The building barely stood anymore, leaning precariously on the edge of a collapsed area. Rust rotted the ground out from under it, and he wondered as he always did how groundframes could stand it. How did they find any sense of safety standing on the surface? Gravity inevitably pulled down. There was no triumphant victory for staying ground-bound, only the waiting game before gravity inevitably won in the end. Every step they took was chained by limitations, by perceptions and restrictions they often put on themselves, and those chains would drag them into the depths given one wrong step. What kind of life was that?

The darkness wasn’t as dark once he was inside. Starlight and cold mist trailed after his feet in a dull path, and his wings bled chilled, silver air like afterimages from an overstressed optical system. Starscream frowned at the transparent blue of his hands and felt afraid. Soon, the light of his spark would be hidden by the pain of his body. Memories would boil his mind alive. The cold freedom of the air would sear away under ground and life. 

He hated his body. He hated the shredded metal of his wrists where bolts pinioned the joints; hated the perforated knee joints and the sharp pole that would slide through the holes to lock them together; hated the chain pinching his neck cables and strangling his fuel intake. He hated where the blue and red didn’t fill in, because the metal that should have been painted with life and color was gone. The wings that should have flared proudly at his back bled shreds of blue and red down it, and worse than what they should have been was what they _were_. 

He didn’t feel his body yet, but his spark cringed in anticipation. The numb cold would melt away, and hot pain would turn his body into a prison. The horizon was at his fingertips, drawing ever closer as the cage shrank to force him back to where he couldn’t escape, and the sky had disappeared. 

The sky went on forever until it didn’t. Someone had taken it away. 

A huge shadow knelt before him to prod cautiously at his slowly solidifying shape. The silvery steam filling him twined around the invading hand, heated, and swirled faster. Tinges of color radiated out from the arm through his cockpit in a twisting spiral, and the accompanying pain twisted deeper the longer it stayed inside him.

He stared at the shadow, half seeing through it and half terrified of it. It wore a face he should know, and the part of him that remembered someone talking about noises in space also remembered battle. It distantly thought that he should be afraid of this mech examining him in the darkness, but battles weren’t something he feared anymore. Battles meant he could fight. Warriors and brutes didn’t torture, and their curiosity had a simplicity to it that science didn’t.

Fear lit a fire in Starscream hotter than even the pain, because dread fueled it. Overlaid over the mech staring at him was another person, this one studying him, and no matter how he shut off his optics, the observation continued. Science, crueler than curiosity, would burn him until his broken body finally became a corpse, but even then, the colors would return. He knew he couldn’t be free of it. 

Terror squeezed his spark. Underneath the fear and pain, however, hidden and breathing frost inside him, anger formed glaciers in his mind. Solid, ice-cold glaciers of defiance that would trickle away as the heat blasted him, but freeze once the heat passed. They were old and had refrozen as many times as they had melted. His body could be ripped open, his spark forced back into it, but his mind…that, at least, couldn’t be tortured into surrender. Submission, yes. Fear, of course. But the glaciers went deep, and they were cold enough to chill the hottest fires burning him. 

He remembered the sky above him, open and expanding. Escape was one flight away, if only he kept trying. Never give up, never surrender, and always keep running.

In the last second before life and agony claimed him in an overwhelming wave of red-hot sensation, Starscream met Grimlock’s gaze, and a fierce snarl crossed his battered face.

For that second, he was still free.

 

**[* * * * *]**

_[ **A/N:** For NK, who went for the plot that will kill people’s emotions. Blame NK. I’m just writing it.]_


	3. Pt. 3

**Title:** Storm Shelter  
**Warning:** Torture, gore, death. The usual. Now with added slavery!  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Continuity:** G1 AU  
**Characters:** Dinobots, Optimus Prime, Hot Rod  
**Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors.  
**Acting Motivation (Prompt):** Fic based off of a kinkmeme request (http://tfanonkink.livejournal.com/3587.html?thread=3222787#t3222787). Hardcore, like whoa.

 **[* * * * *]**  
Pt. 3  
**[* * * * *]**

 

Optimus Prime saw him coming. Construction stopped to let him through. Even defeated Decepticons had a sense of self-preservation. The T-Rex charging at a ground-eating lope down the completed road shook the ground with his footsteps, and he didn't look as if he would slow down for anyone. He didn't so much as stumble as he hit the unfinished section of the road. 

Dull optics brightened. Chains clanged up and down the roadside as the work crews threw themselves out of the way just in time to avoid becoming road pizza under massive clawed feet. Curses and yelps of surprise followed him. For many of the Decepticons, it was the most energetic they'd been in ages. Forced labor gave them nothing new to do, nothing interesting to think about, and nothing to look forward to but a life sentence of paying for war crimes. A Dinobot stomping through their midst threw them into chaos.

Fast as he was, the small Autobot acting as courier for the Prime didn't pass the huge Dinobot. He zipped in Grimlock's wake, motor revving nervously, and didn't try to take the lead. The road cleared for the Dinobot, but the speedster fishtailed in the gap left behind, unnerved. Grimlock single-mindedly sought whom he was looking for. No excuses of preferring solitude would be accepted.

The Prime was a lone mech up on the low hill of waste scrap piled up beside the construction site. The Autobots overseeing the prisoner chain gangs pretended not to see the mech. The Decepticons cast him resentful glares as often as they looked up in hopeless, numb resignation. Grimlock didn't take his optics off him. 

The T-Rex slowed at last and stepped off the road. He stumped up the hill, leaving his courier escort fidgeting in the midst of the construction, and transformed as he drew near. Almost against their wills, workers and guards alike paused up and down the road to stare at the tall Dinobot leader standing head and shoulders above Optimus Prime. Grimlock had a fearsome reputation, but seeing how he towered above the Prime’s already impressive height really brought home how frightening the bestial warrior truly was.

The Prime looked back at them, expressionless. Grimlock ignored their staring. He'd been stared at his entire life. 

Their conversation started in the middle, as it usually did. Grimlock saw no point in the meaningless pleasantries of smalltalk. “Me Grimlock think you Optimus Prime have slaves.”

From anyone else, it would have been a personal attack, but Grimlock wasn't another Autobot or a neutral. It would have been an accusation at a former faction commander and leader from either of those. However, the Dinobots were too alien to belong to Autobot or neutral alliance. They were a group unto themselves. Grimlock's accusation felt like criticism from an equal, but a criticism directed at the faction as a whole instead of at the Prime. 

Optimus had led the Autobots for too long to easily separate himself from what they did in this post-war world. He had to explain the work crews. “They’re not slaves. They’re prisoners." Autobot guards shouted harsh orders to resume work. Former Decepticon soldiers flinched and bent back to the road. The flinching betrayed how far the guards would go if the orders were disobeyed, and Grimlock noted their wariness. Optimus' broad shoulders drew in as if bracing against the weight of reality pressing in on him. His deep voice took on a defensive note. "It’s either this or sitting useless in cells, never moving. Never seeing the stars. Never seeing what Cybertron can become.”

The Prime looked up at Cybertron's eternal twilight, optics strangely yearning. Grimlock didn't look away from the work crews. The brief excitement of his arrival had disappeared. One or two Decepticons glanced up at the hill occasionally, but their optics faded back to the dull red of disinterest and energy conservation. He doubted they saw him as more than an Autobot-shaped figure to be avoided if possible. The prisoners working on the road had withdrawn so far into themselves plodding labor was probably all they were good for. 

He shook his head, disgusted. “Me Grimlock think them Decepticons see plenty. Me Grimlock not think them Decepticons like this Cybertron.” _He_ didn't like this Cybertron. Every time the Dinobots returned to the Autobots' supposed 'civilization,' they found more reasons to stay out in the wilderness. 

“It’s not for them to like," Optimus said, optics snapping to Grimlock. The blue hardened. "They tore down what it once was. That Cybertron was our home. It was a Golden Age, it was…" Memory darkened the blue, pain softening old anger, and he looked down at the road again. "It’s gone because of them. Now they’ll rebuild what they destroyed.”

Grimlock snorted air out as if he were still in his beastmode. Color him a skeptic if the Autobots of this post-war world were building anything resembling gold. This didn't look golden. If anyone had gold, it wasn't the Decepticons working on the road.

What he knew of gold came from Earth. The human Carly had worn earrings and a necklace of it, and she'd cried the day a burglar broke into her apartment and stole them. The man had broken the law, had been a thief, but what Grimlock remembered best about sniffing out the trail had been the stories the pawnshop dealer told about why people sold their gold trinkets. Stolen or treasured, gold fetched money when people got desperate. The Dinobots had found those stories fascinating, and they'd proceeded to make Prowl very uncomfortable by asking a lot of questions about the gray areas of ethics and the Autobot Code.

Carly hadn't cared _why_ the burglar -- her neighbor in the apartment building, as Grimlock's nose had discovered -- took her things. Survival and greed looked the same from the perspective of the woman crying over her missing jewelry.

Gold, Earth had taught Grimlock, was a symbol of wealth. It was also a gift, a temptation, and a taunt. What it wasn't, was evenly distributed. 

So when he looked down at the Decepticons, then at Optimus Prime, Grimlock thought of Carly and the burglar, but he also thought of gilded French palaces and starving beggars, glib comments about cake and heads that rolled. He doubted the workers below had been privileged enough to do more than see the gold held by others. “Did you Optimus Prime like it Golden Age Cybertron?”

The Prime's optics went softer yet as he looked off into the past. “It was beautiful. I wish you could have seen it, my friend.”

Grimlock had heard that Optimus Prime had once been a dock worker. Either it had been a job he enjoyed, or nostalgia tinted the past heavily. Grimlock wondered, but he didn’t ask. It didn't matter in the context of today. 

An overseer shouted a reprimand at a dingy blue flyer and raised an electrowhip. The Decepticon cringed, expression blank but arms up in defense. He said something, low and fast, and the overseer's optics shot up to check if the two observers on the hill were indeed watching. Grimlock met his gaze. Threats of violence against defeated foes didn’t impress him. The guard hesitated. 

The slender red-and-gold speedster hovering at the edge of the disciplinary action took the chance to dart in. Whatever he said brought the flyer's arms down, cautious red optics on him, and the overseer glanced between hill and courier. Grimlock kept his gaze steady until the Autobot stiffly lowered the whip and spat an angry warning at the Decepticon, who ducked his head and bent back to work. If he was grateful for the reprieve, he couldn't spare the few seconds necessary to nod his thanks. He just went back to laying surfacing for the road. The courier lingered a moment, face turned up toward the hill as if hoping for acknowledgement. 

Optimus Prime hadn't noticed the conflict at all, lost in memories as he was. The courier's spoiler dropped, but he gamely went back to walking through the construction. 

Grimlock snorted air, annoyed by the distant look in his companion's optics. Typical of an Autobot to look right through the present while remembering the past. Whatever the Golden Age had been, it wasn't here and now. Sometimes he felt like the only one who thought of the past _as_ the past. He had no interest in somehow reverting the present to the past. Going back in time wouldn't solve the problems of this time.

“Me Grimlock think us Dinobots wouldn’t fit in on you Optimus Prime’s old Cybertron," he said abruptly, breaking in on Optimus' thoughts. "Too pretty-perfect. Too many rules. It Golden Age government told citybots what they could and couldn’t do. Why? What give it government right? You Optimus Prime fight. Me Grimlock understand why you Optimus Prime lead Autobots. Him Megatron fought, but him Megatron used him Megatron’s strength to destroy, not rule. Me Grimlock still understand why him Megatron led Decepticons. Why did it government lead old Cybertron?" 

His head cocked to the side, a quick, predatory motion he knew unsettled many mechs. In his beastmode, his optics were positioned in a way that required tipping his head to bring his field of vision around. It was a uniquely bestial bit of body language, especially when paired with utter stillness. Cybertronians didn't know how to deal with the person they were talking to standing completely still, watching them like they were prey. 

The Prime didn't react, but neither did he answer. 

Grimlock narrowed his visor, disgruntled. "Us Dinobots ask. You Autobots not have answer. You Autobots say, ‘kept the peace’ and ‘will of the people,’ but me Grimlock not think it government worked so well." He jerked his chin at the work crews. "Them Decepticons were people with wills, too.”

 _That_ got a reaction. Stung, Optimus drew his shoulders back and looked up at the bigger mech in severe disapproval. “The Decepticons thought themselves above the government. They wanted to destroy it instead of work through it."

"Could them Decepticons have used it government? It government criminalized Decepticon movement. Me Grimlock remember him Prowl talking about them Enforcers and it Decepticon Registration Act. Me Grimlock not think registration lead to change. Me Grimlock think registration so them Senate could know where and who them Senate's enemies were."

"The Decepticons made criminals of themselves. Prowl was involved in finding the criminals who called themselves Decepticons, and requiring the Decepticons to register happened around the same time, not because the Enforcers wanted a catalogue of suspects. Every political party was required to register its members," Optimus said quietly. "Registration legitimatized political parties. It allowed the Senate to track trends in social movement."

Grimlock stood stock still, visor fixed on the Prime, letting pressure build. His silence pulled more words out.

"That was law. I won't pretend that sometimes the law was abused, but laws exist to protect. The weak need their protection as much, if not more than the strong. A weak political party that followed the rules of the Senate was protected by those rules as much as the more powerful parties." Optimus unfolded and refolded his arms.

Grimlock made a noncommittal sound. It was a prod to continue, not agreement.

Below them on the road, the bright speedster had apparently talked the guards into allowing the chain gangs a break. The Decepticons immediately sat or stretched wherever they stood, relieved. A couple turned marveling optics toward the red-and-gold Autobot. He held the guards' attention by telling some sort of tall tale involving rapid arm movements and funny voices. It sounded like one of Kup’s stories, only told using twice the enthusiasm. The guards were laughing their afts off.

Optics tired, Optimus watched the courier hold court. That kind of charisma had potential. He'd have taken note of the young speedster for future officer training during the war, but there was little point in it, these days. The war was over. Charisma didn't go as far as it used to. Political clout required more than rousing speeches and loyalty in battle. More and more, he found that the office of the Prime was meant to be a figurehead position. He could stand by as an observer, and maybe his presence might affect those he watched, but he was no longer involved. 

Being useless was a new feeling for him. He shook away the creeping depression and looked back to Grimlock. "The Decepticons refused to register. They chose to seize power when they couldn't gain it through lawful means. If their issues had been important or widespread enough to merit a change in our laws, then they could and should have sought that change through the government. The system was designed to allow for such changes. The government during the Golden Age was according to Senate rule, which was dictated by majority votes by their districts and then again on the Senate floor. Change could be made by the people, from the district level up.”

“You Prime contradict self.”

“Unfortunately, that’s often a trait of government change.” A flash of humor squinted the Prime's optics. Grimlock's bluntness could be rude on occasion, but he found the honesty refreshing. 

“If it majority is strong, then them weak not protected by laws. Them weak repressed. Dis-cri-mi-na-tion," the Dinobot sounded out. He abandoned stillness for a restless shifting. Scrap creaked under his feet. "Strength determined by numbers, not need. Them minority have fewer numbers. No power to change laws. It majority in power unwilling to let power go. Fear of them weak not in power turning power on it majority the same way it majority used power against them minority.”

Optimus’ vents flared, blowing out a blast of stale air in a sharp burst. His arms folded tighter across his chest. “A majority isn’t a faceless mono-mass conglomerate controlled by a hivemind. A majority is made of individuals in agreement.” He was silent for a moment. “What you said is true, to a point. I’ll admit that, but a system of checks and balances on power is lawful. Organized. Overriding the majority of voices by shouting louder to blot out their words isn’t fair to those of us who also have a right to be heard.” 

Grimlock’s head slowly cocked in the other direction, but it was a thoughtful gesture instead of a predatory one. “Them minority drowned out by number of it -- of **them** majority’s speakers. You Optimus Prime tell me Grimlock how them minority change it government when legal methods fail. Them minority not just give up and go home, if them minority’s lives important to them minority.”

The Prime shook his head. “That’s what Megatron claimed, when he brought his minority into Iacon. He claimed he had no choice but to clear a path when nobody would do what he demanded.” Impatience threaded through his words; he’d fought a war against this minority, after all. “His political party chose to take up arms when their expansionist powerplay in the Senate failed. The Senate voted the party down repeatedly, and I can understand why the Enforcers were brought into the registration effort. The Decepticons were causing trouble behind the scenes long before Megatron made his first open move. Several murders of prominent politicians were accredited to the underground movement, and threats were made. The violence fueled more violence, and Megatron encouraged it even during the votes.” Optimus stopped and eased his shoulders down, throttling back his fans. “After that, they simply came into Iacon and started taking support by force. He killed anyone who wouldn’t join him, and his laws were made up on the spot by right of force.”

He looked up at his companion, gaze challenging. “Is that a better system, Grimlock? You approve of violence as a means of control, don’t you? I don’t agree with you, but I can see how it’s worked in your unit. But can you imagine that spread across a world? An army? Play a guessing game with your mechs’ lives every time you promote someone. Will you choose the right officer to delegate your methods to, someone who won’t let the power go to his head?”

Grimlock met that gaze before turning his head, very deliberately, toward the work crews down below. “Did you Optimus Prime?”

The two of them watched labor resume on the road. The speedster’s story had come to a close, but the guards were in a good mood as they shouted commands. Chains clinked. Short as the break had been, the prisoners had needed it. Their optics were a little brighter now, a little more curious. Heads turned the tiniest bit when the courier zoomed down the road between the work crews.

“Me Grimlock hear many things about it old Cybertron,” said Grimlock, watching the Decepticons covertly watch the shiny Autobot. “The more me Grimlock hear, the more us Dinobots glad it Golden Age Cybertron gone.” He shrugged. “Us Dinobots still not impressed by it current Cybertron. You Optimus Prime sure you Optimus Prime chose them right people to delegate to? This not look like protection or power to them people. This look like slave labor. This look like what him Megatron did.”

And to that, Optimus Prime had no ready answer. He inhaled several times, vents drawing air in preparation of a reply that didn’t come. He couldn’t explain or defend the prisoner chain gangs doing forced labor on the road. The Decepticons were used for projects at the bidding of Cybertron’s new government. He, the Prime, wasn’t included in the project votes anymore. It was civilian business, he was told. Mundane civic decisions were below a Prime’s level.

He turned up at the construction sites to be a witness, the overseers’ overseer, their conscience, but half the time he showed up to see what was going on. More and more information failed to cross his desk, these days. Either it or he had been downgraded as unimportant to the government process, and he’d been shuffled out of the way.

Subdued, he dimmed his optics. “This isn’t my doing.” It was a weak excuse at best. It felt like what it was: dodging responsibility for what he saw in front of him. The polite fiction of round-about phrasings used by the current crop of politicians dressed Decepticon pressed labor gangs up in prison terminology, but the truth worked down there. This was punishment gone too far. 

“You Optimus Prime leader.” Grimlock’s visor held somber concern, not the censure his companion dreaded facing, but the Prime didn’t meet his gaze to see it. “Us Dinobots know you Optimus Prime’s right to lead them Autobots. Everyone know you Optimus Prime good leader.”

For once, the Prime was left wondering whom Grimlock referred to. Did ‘everyone’ count the Autobots, the Dinobots, the neutrals…the Decepticons? Knowing Grimlock, the vagueness had been deliberate.

Optimus chose to accept Grimlock calling him a leader as the high praise it was. “Thank you.” 

“Them Council not leaders. Them Council followers.” Implying heavily that a group of followers should have a leader, and shame on the fool who’d left them in charge. Optimus suppressed a cough at the significant look directed down at him. The Dinobot leader knew exactly what he was talking about, here.

Grimlock’s followers were extremely independent individuals, contrary and irate at each other almost as much as they were toward authority figures, but removing Grimlock from command would be only the first of many bad decisions. Violent and impulsive as they seemed as followers, making them leaders would result in anarchy at best. Some people weren’t followers because they lacked management skill command presence, but because putting them in power would be a mistake. Give them control, and they went out of control.

“The Council is a better solution than a dictatorship,” Optimus said, stubbornly returning to one of his core beliefs. If he’d set himself up as the ruler of Cybertron, it wouldn’t be long before the neutrals -- if not some of the Autobots -- accused him of being no better than a tyrant like Megatron.

Grimlock blinked at him, visor narrowing and dimming in a slow reset as if he were processing what the Prime had said down to the last nuance of history. One side of his visor stayed narrowed. The way he stared down at him reminded Optimus of a judge weighing evidence.

Finally, he grunted. The sound fell somewhere between contempt and dismissal, but that was normal. The Dinobots didn’t respect Autobot ideals. Most of the Autobots had never realized why the Dinobots had agreed to an alliance back on Earth instead of staying rogue. The group had grudgingly taken the Autobot badge from a loose, unpredictable, almost feudal connection to Optimus Prime personally. Their loyalty could only be earned by a worthy person, not some sort of a representative of the Autobot Cause. Their adherence to the Autobot Code was merely coincidental with their own internal sense of right and wrong. 

As a result, they didn’t put the Prime on a pedestal. They constantly evaluated him. They respected him as a leader for his strengths but not for his weaknesses, and they made no secret of how he failed to meet their standards. Their testing could be nerve-wracking, but Optimus felt rather proud of gaining their approval _despite_ the idealism they criticized as softness. 

Their approval hinged on Grimlock’s, of course. Conversations with Grimlock were diplomatic events between sovereign nations, Autobot and Dinobot. Grimlock reigned as king, but he would follow the Prime’s directions to a certain extent. He considered Optimus a fellow commander and equal, but possessing of wisdom that Grimlock admired. 

So while Grimlock might think Optimus’ opinion on the Council was stupider than Sludge, he respected Optimus enough to listen to that opinion. Honestly, that was all a mech could hope for from a Dinobot.

Down on the road, construction paused as a guard and a Decepticon got into an argument. It escalated quickly. Across the build site, the Prime’s assigned courier shot upright. He’d been doodling on a section of road surfacing. Boredom forgotten, he sprinted toward the shouting match. Maybe he’d intended to intervene, but he arrived too late for that. 

The overseer shoved his defiant charge down, knees to the ground and chain pinned under his foot to keep the mech down. Drawing back his arm made every Decepticon hunch smaller, wary, and a mass flinch went through the chains as the first lash fell. The snap and crackle of an active electrowhip was as familiar to them as working chained to the next prisoner in line. A temporary buzz of increased activity took over the road work as the prisoners redoubled their efforts.

Above the beating thinly disguised as discipline, the two leaders stood watching. Grimlock’s visor held nothing but neutral dispassion as the whip fell. “Them humans have good theories about herd mentalities and power in prisons. Me Grimlock think them theories apply.”

Smoke stacks twitched, shaking off the sickly mesmerizing rhythm of the whip, and Optimus stared up at him in a weird sort of dumb wonder. That was the last thing he’d expected to hear from the massive warrior, but it reflected poorly on his expectations, not Grimlock’s mind. He knew better than to set boundaries based on the Dinobot’s lumbering image instead of what was actually said and done.

Optimus twitched his shoulders again, shaking his head to jumpstart his thoughts. It took him a minute to find his voice. “Sometimes you make it easy to forget what you did on Earth.”

Grimlock’s visor slitted in self-satisfaction, gloating over how well his barbarian disguise worked. “Me Grimlock not do anything different here. Us Dinobots just find you Cybertronians less interesting than them tiny meat-mans.”

Optimus saw that gloating and eyed Grimlock in reproof. “The Golden Age produced a great many studies of psychology and social theories.”

Grimlock didn’t care in the slightest. “You Cybertronians not learn from them studies.”

“You’re one of us.”

“Us Dinobots not Cybertronians.” If he’d been in his beastmode, the T-Rex would have curled his lip. Distaste filled his voice. No, the Dinobots weren’t Cybertronians. They weren’t from Cybertron, hadn’t come from or been created here, and they didn’t _want_ to be Cybertronians. 

Wheeljack and Ratchet might have built them, but the Dinobots didn’t consider themselves adopted. They preferred to do the adopting. They hadn’t been brought into the Cybertronian fold; Wheeljack and Ratchet, by adoption, were Dinobots. To their credit, neither engineer nor medic had objected to the backward adoption. Quite frankly, they’d given up on the other Autobots treating their creations as fully sentient. Any time the topic came up, Wheeljack dropped the entire conversation and Ratchet’s lips thinned right before he changed the subject. Optimus didn’t know for sure, but he’d long suspected that one or the other of the pair had originally warned the Dinobots to hide their intelligence.

Anyone who cared to watch or listen could discover what the Dinobots were truly like under their brute squad façade. The fact that none cared to told the Dinobots all they needed to know about Cybertronians. The clues were there, but nobody connected the dots. Grimlock did as much research here on Cybertron as he had on Earth, requesting political news and downloading histories any time he neared the cities. A full fourth of the supplies ferried out to resupply their exploration mission were medical, but yet nobody seemed to realize that in order to use those supplies, one or more of the Dinobots had to be smart enough to be a medic. 

Optimus had seen Cliffjumper and Hound’s latest report, and he’d read between the lines. The Dinobots had constructed a home base, of sorts. They were smart enough to get out of the rain, but more than that, they were capable of repairing whatever abandoned fort they’d come across. Rebuilding was a skill. Not everyone could do it. Optimus knew that full well.

Grimlock cast a scornful look over the road work. “Us Dinobots not do this. Us Dinobots not agree to this. When us Dinobots defeat them enemies, us Dinobots kill them enemies fast. Us Dinobots not kill them enemies by torture.”

“Don’t say that,” Optimus said, more disturbed than he’d admit. “This isn’t torture. It’s…harsh, but it **is** justice.” 

“You Optimus Prime say that, but me Grimlock think you Optimus Prime not believe own words. You Optimus Prime look at them Decepticons. You Optimus Prime imagine them Autobots in same place.” The Dinobot glowered at his companion until the Prime reluctantly turned to witness the tail end of the beating. 

The Decepticon under the whip gasped and yelped, but he didn’t look repentant when he pulled against the chain to look up. The guard’s arm went back again. A flash of fear filled the Decepticon’s face, but the red-and-gold speedster was _there_. It took a few tense minutes of fast talking, but eventually the guard sheathed his electro-whip, mollified by whatever the courier said to him. A barked order and a kick sent the prisoner back to work, grimacing from singed circuits but spared further damage.

Autobot and Dinobot leaders observed. They didn’t intervene. The shiny little Autobot looked up at them, brow furrowed, and only Grimlock met his searching look. 

“Me Grimlock not have any problem imagining us Dinobots in chains,” the hulking warrior said in a serious tone. “Us Dinobots not enter cities as long as them Council running government. Us Dinobots not agree with it government, and us Dinobots a minority. Us Dinobots already know how them majority can dis-cri-mi-nate.”

“That would never happen. I would never let that happen.”

Glass cracked like a gunshot as Grimlock backhanded him hard across the chest. Optimus jolted in shock, but Grimlock gripped him by the arm with his other hand, dragging him close so the Dinobot spit words in his face. “You Optimus Prime listen to own words. You Optimus Prime have power to stop them Council, or you Optimus Prime don’t. This is slavery. You Optimus Prime know. ” Metal creaked in his hand. Optimus didn’t wince, but Grimlock shook him as if to wake him up. “Me Grimlock would have stopped this if me Grimlock Autobot leader, but me Grimlock not. Me Grimlock not lead sadists. Me Grimlock beginning to wonder about you Optimus Prime.” 

He hauled the smaller mech around, making him look down at the construction. “You Optimus Prime look. Prisoners are criminals serving a sentence. Them Decepticons not prisoners. Them Decepticons not serving a sentence. Them Decepticons have lives taken away, and you Autobots punishing them without end. How many of them Decepticons dead? How many have them Council killed in work program instead of by execution?”

Optimus' resistance to the handling was half-sparked. “I haven’t seen any numbers. I’ve asked for them, but I’ve never gotten them.”

“Them Council always have excuse.”

“Yes. Yes, they do." His optics dimmed to a weary, murky blue, and Optimus yanked against the hand holding him place. It got him nowhere. Grimlock was strong, but Optimus wasn't really trying all that hard to get loose. After a minute of one-sided tug-of-war, the Prime sighed and stopped. "Most of the time, I believe it to be a good excuse. It’s only when I…" His optics lit to take in the forced labor on the road below. 

Grimlock let him turn away, this time. Facing a problem head-on might not be the solution, but the Dinobot stood back and let him do as he wished. Optimus turned his back, and it hit him that nobody had made him do it. That shame was on him, and him alone. 

His shoulders slumped. "You’re not the only one who thinks this way about the work program. Forced labor isn’t what’s happening here, and I know that." His voice, deep as it was, had a brittle rawness running through it. "There are many reasons why this is a good idea, however. So many. The economy is recovering. The cities are growing. This highway will stimulate further growth by connecting the cities by fast, easy access routes.”

He knew what the Prime was attempting to do. Optimus wanted to explain away the chain gangs, the Decepticons working with one optic on sheathed electrowhips. It didn't work. Grimlock looked at Optimus' back in utmost scorn. “You Optimus Prime talking to convince self that you Optimus Prime not responsible for them Decepticons." His powerplant snarled his opinion on dodging responsibility, and the Prime turned to face him, not quite in a defensive stance but ready to fall into one. 

The Dinobot didn't intend to attack. This was, for once, something that required more words than action. Politics. Diplomacy. He might not be brilliant like Perceptor, but a peculiar, canny craftiness hid behind his brutish exterior. He would talk, for now.

"Me Grimlock see it Cybertron outside of them cities. Economy mean nothing, out there. Them cities push wildlife back, and us Dinobots see pushes ripple outward. Wildlife push into new territory, upset order, change ecosystem, cause chaos, and acid rain comes down. Storms are getting worse. Them cities give them Council buffer from storms now, but not for long." He cocked his head to the side in that unnerving bestial manner. Everything about him in that moment reminded Optimus that this mech was an alien wearing a Cybertronian's form, an outsider disguised as one of them. "Us Dinobots can see storm coming. You Optimus Prime not blind. You Optimus Prime see storm, too. Me Grimlock think you Optimus Prime parked between not stopping storm or **can’t** stop storm.”

Optimus Prime had long experience as a diplomat. His face mask and complete lockdown on his body language concealed whether or not that remark hit home. Step up and make a difference, or find out he couldn't change a thing. The outcome wouldn't be clear until he committed to trying, and once committed, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

He looked off away from the road, unable to turn around. Cybertron stretched out before him. It looked untamed, wild, and it tempted him to drop into his altmode. He could just drive away from everything here. It might be savage out there, but savagery didn’t provoke moral quandaries and hesitation over what was right versus wrong. Only civilization did that.

Acid rain clouds gathered far off on the horizon. He knew how dangerous they were. 

“How do we always end up talking about the weather?” he asked, watching the clouds.

“Because you Optimus Prime won’t put in words what you Optimus Prime actually see. Me Grimlock start using eu-phe-mi-sms.” Grimlock squinted, searching for whatever the Prime was looking at. 

Optimus wondered what he saw when peering at the wartorn landscape, because the Dinobot’s visor paused several times to study things the Prime couldn’t see before focusing at last on the storm on the horizon. It bothered Optimus that someone so young held himself behind a mask like this. Around anyone but him, Grimlock wore a vacant look and stumbled over long words. When he did his stupid act around Optimus, it was part of his odd sense of humor.

The Prime didn't think it was funny. “Why must you play the fool? The Council…” He shook his head. “People would find you less frightening if you didn’t culture the image of an uneducated barbarian.”

Laughter erupted from the solemn warrior in a loud bellow. Every head turned toward the hill, but Grimlock bent and slapped his leg, genuinely amused by the Prime’s words. “Ha! Because that work so well for him Megatron? No, us Dinobots play stupid.” Snickering, he slapped the Prime’s shoulder, too. “You Cybertronians scared of smart warriors. Smart warriors can’t be controlled by it stupid government. Dumb soldiers easy to manipulate.” He straightened up, hand still resting on Optimus’ shoulder, and the laughter drained away into a grim certainty that the Prime felt as a chill spreading across his spark. “Us Dinobots stay out in wilds, away from citybots who think it government have us Dinobots under control, and us Dinobots stay warriors instead of slaves.” The hand on Optimus’ shoulder pulled him around slightly, pointing him toward a section of the road and pushing a bit to urge him to look. “Me Grimlock think them Decepticons understand us Dinobots’ strategy just fine.”

Optimus froze. “You see him.”

Grimlock wasn’t the only one who saw things and kept secrets. Below them, the dingy blue flyer continued working. He never, ever looked up at the hill. It might draw attention if he was seen glancing up at the two tall mechs above him, and attention might mean recognition. Self-preservation kept his head down. He likely hoped that the two leaders up on the hill couldn’t get a close enough look at his face to recognize him, or if they did, they assumed he wasn’t who he looked like. Dead mechs couldn’t be in a chain gang, right? 

Of course not, but just in case…best he stay unnoticed, or someone might question how exactly a Decepticon officer was still alive.

“Me Grimlock not know what you Optimus Prime talking about. Us Optimus Prime and Grimlock talking about weather. You Optimus Prime see face in clouds?” the Dinobot asked innocently.

Optimus watched the road work for a moment before exhaling a long breath. His fans stuck unpleasantly. “Not a face, precisely, but sometimes the forecast is clearer than I’d like. Clear enough that I wonder why no one else can see it.”

“Maybe you Optimus Prime out driving when you Optimus Prime should be in them cities asking who else can see.”

A wry note twisted the Prime’s baritone. Grimlock wasn’t going to drop the subject. “Possible. I’d like to think that they would trust me enough -- but I lost that trust. I lost it, or they lost **my** trust.” 

The brief flash of humor died, falling into a pit of black anger he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go. A better person might forgive, but his store of forgiveness had run out the day he’d become an executioner. “I can’t say that I would trust anyone who spoke to me. I find it difficult to associate with many of my old comrades. Perhaps that’s why I feel like I can’t change anything.” He turned to fully face the build site again, taking in the chains, the guards, and the world as it was. “This is what the Council wanted set into place. This is the Cybertron my Autobots fought for. This is what they believe is victory, and if this is their victory, I…I wonder.”

He wondered if he’d fought for the right side.

“Me Grimlock not care about complicated moral structure.”

Optimus blinked so hard his helm ticked from the reset. “That’s certainly blunt.”

“Hmph. Me Grimlock tired of wordgames.” It broke the well-worn rut of the Prime’s pity-party, anyway. Grimlock understood why Optimus felt betrayed by the Autobots, but he didn’t sympathize. “You Optimus Prime ended war. You Optimus Prime prevented them Decepticon officers from restarting war. Now you Optimus Prime have different circumstances. This new Cybertron, not old Cybertron. This not war. This aftermath. Them Council look out for them majority. Them Council do what them majority wants. Them majority keeps power and fears loss of power, and them Council keep majority happy to keep them Council’s government. It government protect the strong.” He bent down and pushed his head forward, invading Optimus’ personal space. “What you Optimus Prime decide to do is in aftermath, not in Golden Age or war. You Optimus Prime not need to look out for them Council or majority. Them Council and majority take care of themselves, so who do you Optimus Prime fight for? You Optimus Prime need to protect the strong?”

Some of the guards were staring up the hill, curious. Grimlock was notoriously aggressive. Seen from the road, it looked like the Dinobot was a step from attacking, and Optimus Prime's lack of reaction alarmed the Autobots. The rare Decepticon who looked up at the confrontation seemed to be hoping for more action. At least it would be something to break up the monotony of labor.

Of all the people down below, the one Optimus watched was the red-and-gold speedster. The slender courier was too busy telling another story to have noticed Grimlock growling in the Prime's face. Around him, Decepticon and Autobot alike were similarly distracted. There was a section of the construction site that simply didn't care about anything happening up the hill.

Optimus watched the courier and spoke slowly, choosing his words with care. “Megatron blamed the war on me, you know. He once told me I’d started the war by fighting back. Without the Autobots, the Decepticons would have conquered and united Cybertron under Megatron’s rule. 'Peace through tyranny,' as he put it. They weren’t the majority, but they held power through force of arms.”

“Force of arms good. Me Grimlock think the strong should rule." Grimlock stood up straight, folding his arms and nodding approval. "But me Grimlock know why you Optimus Prime fight him Megatron. Bullying the weak is bad. Us Dinobots not fight them humans. Them humans weak. Them humans not able to fight back. Us Dinobots could take over Earth, but us Dinobots not abuse them humans under rule. Us Dinobots not like them Decepticons.”

“It’s not that simple.”

Exasperation burst out of Grimlock's vents in a loud chuff. “Why you Optimus Prime think me Grimlock say simple things? Us Dinobots not simple. You Autobots never want to think about what us Dinobots say. That’s what makes us Dinobots' words simple, not what us Dinobots say." Old anger heated the air he huffed, and he muttered, "Me Grimlock don’t need to play dumb. You Autobots listen dumb.”

“Ah?" Surprised, Optimus just looked at him. The longer he stared, the more he turned Grimlock's words over in his mind. He knew better than to dismiss the Dinobots as simpletons. If they'd conquered Earth, what _would_ their rule have been like? He knew what Earth would have been like under Decepticon control. The Decepticons had conquered several planets before Earth that served as examples. 

The Dinobots had never had the opportunity to rule. Optimus' optics blanked as he imagined the Dinobots in the Decepticons' place. The Dinobots hadn't considered the humans equals, but they didn't consider the Autobots equal, either. Ever set loose to terrorize the populace, fighting amidst themselves or against the Decepticons, their destruction hadn't been intended to hurt the humans. They hadn't particularly cared, but they hadn't intentionally gone out of their way.

"Hmm." Overall, he didn't know what the Dinobots would be like if they had power. Picturing it brought to mind their hidden intelligence, not their clumsy violence. They gloried in their strength, but they didn’t turn their power on the lesser beings surrounding them. When the Decepticons terrorized the humans, in fact, the Dinobots had used their strength to defend the weak creatures.

It was a mental image that wasn't, as Grimlock had said, simple.

Grimlock let him think it over.

When the Prime spoke again, he avoided the topic. It needed to simmer in the back of his mind for a while. Instead, he made a subtle gesture at the speedster making rounds through the guards down below. "You’ve scared another one of the city couriers, I see.” The mech was an animated bundle of stories and boundless energy, but he'd been a jittery mess when he'd arrived on-site escorting the Dinobot. 

Grimlock allowed the graceful diversion. “Him Hot Rod curious, not scared.”

“He didn’t look curious. He looked like you shook him until my location popped out.”

The huff this time was from amusement. Optimus' guess wasn't far from the truth. “Him Hot Rod know about us Dinobots from him Kup. Him Hot Rod not ready to meet me Grimlock face-to-face. Him Hot Rod think me Grimlock too big, but him Hot Rod get used to me Grimlock." He glanced at the Prime, visor dipping in the center. "Us Dinobots think him Hot Rod make good messenger to us Dinobots. Him Hot Rod wasted as citybot courier.”

Optimus' optics rounded in surprise. A recommendation from the Dinobots came around once in a blue moon. Grimlock didn't involve himself in trivial things like personnel assignment, and passing on a compliment from the rest of the Dinobots was even rarer. “All that just from following him out here? He must have made quite an impression." Although, impression or not, "He’s a too inexperienced for solo missions, especially out past the city boundaries off the roads.” A tactful way of saying that what he remembered from talking with the brat was his immaturity. 

Grimlock's systems hummed, revving loudly before settling back to an idle. “Rest of him Hot Rod's group not like him Hot Rod. Them Sludge and Slag like him Hot Rod but not them Arcee and Springer. Them Arcee and Springer treat us Dinobots wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Like them Autobots do.”

“I see.” And Optimus really did. Further explanation, unfortunately, wasn't needed.

Grimlock didn't belittle the Prime by spelling out how the Autobots consistently fell short of the Dinobots' standards. It was a sign of how impressed the Dinobots were with the speedster that Grimlock added, “Him Hot Rod see us Dinobots and see adventures. Adventures aren’t missions. Adventures are stories. Him Kup tell stories, not mission reports. Them Arcee and Springer go on missions, encounter big dumb fighters. Him Hot Rod go on adventures, meet people.”

“I see." Optimus eyed him, thoughtful. He gave the courier the same look. "It’s surprising to see him again. The cadets assigned to me grow disillusioned quickly. They want me to be a hero and usually can’t face the fact that I’m a mech like any other.”

Such a scowling that earned. Grimlock didn't need a face to stare the Prime down. “You Optimus Prime not like any other. Them Autobots want to see you Optimus Prime as hero, then you Optimus Prime should be hero them Autobots need.”

“That’s not what they want to see.”

“You Optimus Prime not listening to me Grimlock again.”

If they were looking for a hero, then a hero was probably needed. Yes, okay, he _got_ it. Tired, Optimus rubbed one of his helm finials. Talking with Grimlock felt like diplomatic talks done through a translator who could handle plain speech but not the subtext. 

Time to shelve the topic until he had time to process. Optimus let his hand fall and looked at the speedster again. “…he’s different, I’ll give you that.”

“Us Dinobots think so." A hint of puzzlement crimped the side of Grimlock's visor. "Me Grimlock not sure why.”

Well, that made two of them. “Neither am I.”

“Him Kup like him Hot Rod, too,” the Dinobot offered.

“He wouldn’t be Kup if he wasn’t somebody’s mentor.”

Grimlock nodded sagely. “You Optimus Prime should ask him Kup for advice.”

“I don’t need more stories.”

“If you Optimus Prime only hearing stories -- “

“Yes, yes, then I’m not listening." Suddenly impatient, Optimus turned to face Grimlock directly. "Why are you here, Grimlock? Why now? If there’s a problem, Prowl or Ratchet are in better positions to address the issue these days.” Grimlock didn't go out of his way to find the Prime if Optimus wasn't nearby, but he'd enlisted the Prime's assigned courier to find him today. There had to be more to this visit than the road work.

The Dinobot looked down at him, unruffled by the sudden aggression. “Me Grimlock have question.”

“Ask it.”

“You Optimus Prime listening?”

Impatience evaporated, replaced by a sense of concern. Optimus didn't know what had triggered Grimlock's question, but if the Dinobot leader felt the need to check if he was paying attention, then Optimus would give him all his attention. “Of course. Ask, my friend.”

“Did you Optimus Prime kill him Starscream?”

"What?" What kind of question was _that_? “You were there. You saw." Wait, no. Of course he had. Yet Grimlock had asked anyway. 

Optimus tensed. "You have reason to believe the shot didn’t kill him. What is it?”

Grimlock shrugged as he looked away, too exaggerated to be casual. “Us Dinobots have no reason. Don’t you Optimus Prime know that us Dinobots know nothing? Us Dinobots can’t touch, feel, taste, or smell anything, but us Dinobots see nothing." Still not looking at the Prime, Grimlock spread his hands. Nothing of what would be the question, but the Dinobots said no evil, heard no evil, and definitely didn't see no evil. They were stupid brawlers, remember? "Us Dinobots see plenty of nothing."

Grimlock's deep voice fell to a growling whisper, not quite rushed but furtive, as if someone might overhear. "It ghost, but you Autobots say him Starscream dead, say it ghost can’t exist. Us Dinobots have no proof, and you Autobots won’t believe what’s in front of you Autobots' optics. So us Dinobots see nothing, and it ghost is nothing." The Dinobots would _not_ endanger themselves kicking cyberbee hives. If the Autobots didn't want to credit them with enough intelligence to know what they saw was real, then Grimlock wasn't going to enlighten them. Better to play dumb and stay safe.

In the end, however, he might not be an Autobot like most mechs thought of an Autobot, but an Autobot he was, nonetheless. He knew what he'd seen, and something had to be done. It wasn't his business, but that didn't mean he shouldn't interfere.

He acknowledged the Prime as an equal, a leader, and wise, so he told Optimus, "It ghost is grayed out, but it ghost is still alive. It ghost hides underground and stares at the sky, and it ghost disappears when it ghost becomes too visible." He shifted, and a grinding sound came from his chest. He didn't know how to phrase what he'd seen out in the ruins. "It ghost turn colors of living mech right before it ghost disappears, but it ghost not vanish into ether. It ghost **go somewhere** , and it ghost doesn’t want to go.”

“Starscream? That’s impossible." Optimus immediately cut himself off with a sharp, frustrated movement of one hand. "I’m sorry. I don’t mean to doubt your word. It’s just an impossibility made possible, and I’m having trouble processing what you witnessed in terms that make the impossible a possibility." Thoughts tumbled over themselves in his mind, a tangled mess of disbelief and conjecture that he could barely begin to sort out. 

He turned on one heel to pace a few short steps, bringing his hands up to press the fingertips to the sides of his helm. If the Dinobots had seen a ghost, he had to believe them. 

"Starscream." Of course it had to be Starscream. He blew out a breath, spinning his fans the wrong direction. "Is it his spark?” 

“Hrrm. Him Snarl breath fire at it ghost. Him Snarl say spark visible in fire, but it ghost’s body changes." Grimlock's head bent toward him. "You Optimus Prime listening? It ghost's body changes, and them changes not nice. It ghost's body should be dead. You Optimus Prime understand?”

Optimus' optics widened. The words sank in, and they widened further. “I…yes.”

Grimlock nodded. “You Autobots, them citybots, you Optimus Prime refuse to see torture, but us Dinobots know torture when us Dinobots see. It ghost dead, but it ghost’s spark alive. Them someone is torturing it ghost’s body, but it ghost's body stay alive." He met the Prime's wide optics. "Me Grimlock think you Optimus Prime should go look for what happened to him Starscream's body. Us Dinobots already know all about it ghost.”

“Yes…” Optimus started to say something and stopped himself. "Yes, I should." Somewhere on Cybertron, somewhere in one of the cities, someone was repeatedly torturing a mech to death. No one, not even a Decepticon, deserved that, but on this new Cybertron under the Council's government, he didn't think that anyone would speak up to say so. Look at what was in front of him right now, after all. Outright torture wasn't too far off once the proper language could be found to dress it up as profitable, economical, even justifiable. 

A line had to be drawn between justice and cruelty. If he didn't do it, who would? Nobody else was stepping up. 

Or, just maybe, they'd been waiting for someone to lead them forward.

Message delivered, Grimlock straightened up and nodded in satisfaction of a job well done. He scanned the road construction, visor pausing on the red-and-gold Autobot courier talking the guards into packing up and heading for shelter. He was pointing urgently at the horizon, and the Dinobot looked where he pointed. 

“Me Grimlock see storm coming. You Optimus Prime be careful.”

“I will." Optimus Prime wasn't looking at the acid rain clouds sweeping toward them. His optics were on the city in the distance.

He didn't watch Grimlock transform and start down the hill, but the righteous fury burning cold in his spark came through in the too-level baritone of his voice. "Grimlock!"

"What?" The T-Rex looked back and cocked his head, a predator on the hunt. 

The Prime looked at him in matching stillness. At that moment, the two of them had never looked more alike. "If the Dinobots find a place to wait this out, don’t tell anyone where you go to ground." Hands closed slowly into fists at his sides. "The way the rain’s been falling, it’s safer to stay hidden until the storm passes.” 

 

**[* * * * *]**

 

_[ **A/N:** For Comebackzinc. Thank you for your patience!]_


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